These days, most businesses have their own websites, so good tradesman web design is important for making your company stand out. If you’ve built your own, or have access to one that’s been developed for you, you should make sure it continues to be the best it can be for your business.
Good web design is all about creating a website that holds your visitor’s attention and allows them to extract the information they require. From the moment a user clicks on your website link, you want to take them on a journey that converts them from visitor to customer.
To help you do this, we’ve compiled a set of tips it’s worth implementing on your site.
Shake and Speare’s 6 tips for good tradesman web design:
- Understand your sales funnel
- Simplify your website
- Use the right images
- Employ white space
- Develop an SEO strategy
- Check browser compatibility
Understand your sales funnel
Understanding your sales funnel is all about figuring out how your user makes their journey from visiting your website to purchasing your services. The goal is to design your website so that it naturally persuades your visitor to undertake this journey, making it as easy and pleasant as possible. To do this, you need to investigate how your visitors are interacting with your website.
It’s worth visiting a top website for a service that you need and recording your own actions as you browse through the site, as if you were looking to make a purchase. What do you look for first? The company’s about section? What do they do here that’s effective in making you want to buy their services? What do you look for second? Maybe their review section? Where are their reviews? This kind of research will allow you an insight in how a buyer navigates your site.
A valuable form of research would also be to conduct it directly from your current clients. After all, these are the individuals your website converted from browser to buyer.
Simplify your website
You have 8 seconds to grab and hold your visitor’s attention once they click onto your site. And yes – this includes your loading time. This means it’s in your best interest to slim down your website to just the features that are vital. Start by removing anything that doesn’t fit with the message you want your website to convey. Remove any auto playing content – audio or video, unnecessary pop ups, and flashing banners. Avoid hosting large images on your website – always ensure that you’ve compressed anything you upload.
After this, consider what your most important content is. This is what you want your customer to see first. This includes your company name, your contact information and the areas you serve. Put these features at the top of your homepage, make sure they’re big and the area around them uncluttered. Section your content off with clear and concise headers.
Use the right images
Personalisation is key when it comes to websites. Customers like to know who they’re buying from – that’s why family businesses work so well. The best websites will use their own images, rather than relying on stock photos. If you include images of your work and your team, you instantly distinguish yourself from your competition. Consider creating yourself an about page (there’s our lovely team!) to do just this.
If you find yourself unable to use original images, make sure you’re selective in your use of stock photos instead. It’s worth learning how to choose the perfect stock photo. This way you avoid filling your website up with the same recycled pictures your visitors have seen over and over again.
Use white space
White space is the area between design elements on your webpage. It doesn’t have to be white – funky colours and background pictures count too – but it helps break up the page. The idea of white space is that it increases readability, interrupting dense passages of copy and letting the reader breathe.
By incorporating white space into your website, you help the viewer to grasp whatever message you are trying to get across. Cutting down and breaking up cluttered elements can also convey a higher level of professionalism.
Have a scroll through your website. Is there anywhere that space would improve the flow of the text? Inserting wider margins, for instance, can create narrower paragraphs that are easier to read.
Develop an SEO strategy
Search engine optimisation (SEO) is all about thinking like your customer and taking into account the search terms that your audience is using. With a good SEO strategy, over time, you’ll find your website is getting found more and more. Even if you don’t feel like it’s the right time for you to invest in SEO, you can still develop some basic SEO yourself.
Take your time and do your research. Follow guides like Neil Patel’s What is SEO. You’re not going to become an expert overnight! But with a little effort, you’ll start seeing good results.
Check browser compatibility
If you’ve got a good looking website that you’re super chuffed with, you should make sure that it looks as good to everyone else as it does to you. This means making sure it’s compatible over a range of different browsers.
Load up your site on chrome, firefox, safari etc. and have a fiddle around with it. Don’t just have a quick glance over – click through links, fill out forms and make sure everything is working tickety boo. As browsers tend to roll out regular updates, it’s worth doing this every 6-12 months.
…Get cracking!
There you have it: six easy to implement tips for good tradesman web design.
Continued efforts in perfecting your tradesman website will always pay off! And if you need anymore help, we’re a digital marketing and web design agency that builds websites for tradespeople. We’re always happy to answer any questions you might have, so get in touch.
